Interesting, but in the first place - why did they move to USA/NYC? Why they couldn't launch the mobile app or website from Australia? Maybe this is related to that solving of chicken and egg problem they mention...
They needed to build buzz in the US. That means talking to people, getting your first traction, people discussing the app on the subway, pitching it to women at bars, college campuses, etc.
The model appeared to be a very niche specific eBay/craigslist of sorts. Enabling women to buy (used) clothes from other people...not a retail sales model.
That would explain the need for doing it in the US...larger market.
Of course, that also meant she would enter into a market where she had no practical experience. She also mentions that she had no tech experience, and so had to hire on the tech talent.
I admire the ambition, but I don't see how she was able to get investors at all. Sounds high risk with a pretty hard ceiling on potential.
Great question. A quick web search shows that she is giving talks about her start-up that failed about two years ago, but I could not find much else.
In a recent bio her article on medium is listed prominently:
Nikki was the founder & CEO of 99dresses, a Y Combinator-backed startup that allowed women to trade fashion with each other using a virtual currency. She started the business as a naive 18-year-old fresh out of high school, and experienced a roller coaster 4 year journey before shutting down 99dresses in 2014 and writing about it in a wildly popular Medium post entitled 'My Startup Failed And This Is What It Feels Like...'.
This isn't Reddit, and I for one don't want you posting this here under the guise of "saving time". It's judgemental, condescending and attempts to remove choice from us making our own determinations about the value and interest of the story.
No need to delete - from your comment I've finally found out where is this "flag" link... I always thought I'd need some 5 figure karma or similar for the link to appear...
While I certainly don't want to speak for the commentor, my sense is that this is driven by the fear that failure in the valley equals failure in meeting expectations of an exit. By discriminating on the story to the point it becomes "they went home", one could possibly draw the conclusion others don't want to see such a story told because it could place a double bind on their own actions. i.e. If I read this, I'll become aware of the things I should be afraid of while growing my company and if I do that (become afraid), I'll never be able to do the impossible, change the world, and make my exit.
Again, I'm speaking for others, but am doing so to theorize about the behaviors of the ecosystems we've built around startup culture.
Needs a [2014] in the title. In light of current discussions about a current startup crunch, it'd be nice to make it clear that this one isn't part of it. Good postmortem, though.
I am glad to see female founders getting a little more attention here these days, but I wish more attention were given to why they fail and how to do it better. Here was my take on this piece:
27 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 61.5 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933155
So, maybe I'm naive but why they couldn't upload the mobile app on the app store and website's HTML/CSS/JS/back-end files from Australia?
That would explain the need for doing it in the US...larger market.
Of course, that also meant she would enter into a market where she had no practical experience. She also mentions that she had no tech experience, and so had to hire on the tech talent.
I admire the ambition, but I don't see how she was able to get investors at all. Sounds high risk with a pretty hard ceiling on potential.
In a recent bio her article on medium is listed prominently:
Nikki was the founder & CEO of 99dresses, a Y Combinator-backed startup that allowed women to trade fashion with each other using a virtual currency. She started the business as a naive 18-year-old fresh out of high school, and experienced a roller coaster 4 year journey before shutting down 99dresses in 2014 and writing about it in a wildly popular Medium post entitled 'My Startup Failed And This Is What It Feels Like...'.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11094603 and marked it off-topic.
tl;dr; go away.
(Happy to delete this comment if you delete yours).
But of course I will delete my comment if you delete yours.
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...
That's not a criticism, btw. It's astonishingly difficult to distribute knowledge like this through HN. Or, I suppose, any large community.
Again, I'm speaking for others, but am doing so to theorize about the behaviors of the ecosystems we've built around startup culture.
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-decade-lat...